High speed data display and recording apparatus



June 7, 1966 R. A. HIGONNET ETAL 3,254,579

HIGH SPEED DATA DISPLAY AND RECORDING APPARATUS Original Filed Dec. 19,1960 5 sheets-sheet 1 Original Filed Dec. 19, 1960 June 7,1966 R. A.HIGONNET ETAL 3,254,579

HIGH SPEED DATA DISPLAY AND RECORDING APPARATUS 5 Sheets-Sheet 2 June 7,1966 R. A. HIGONNET ETAL 3,254,579

HIGH SPEED DATA DISPLAY AND RECORDING APPARATUS Original Filed Dec. 19.1960 5 Sheets-Sheet 3 L76 I 78 III=T Ill [aw] M Mvyraud Qua/$4 M June 7,1966 R. A. HIGONNET ETAL 3,254,579

HIGH SPEED DATA DISPLAY AND RECORDING APPARATUS Original Filed Dec. 19,1960 5 Sheets-Sheet 4 'June 7, 1966 R. A. HIGONNET ETAL 3,254,579

HIGH DATA DISPLAY AND RECORDING APPARATUS 5 Sheets-Sheet 5 OriginalFiled Dec. 19. 1960 INVENTORY [001! /7- MoyroucL United States Patent3,254,579 HIGH SPEED DATA DISPLAY AND RECORDING APPARATUS Ren A.Higonnet, Cambridge, and Louis M. Moyroud,

West Medford, Mass. (both Photon, Inc., 355 Middlesex Ave.,WilmingtomMass.) Continuation of application Ser. No. 76,934, Dec. 19,1960. This application Sept. 26, 1963, Ser. No. 313,409 3 Claims. (Cl.95-4.5)

This application is a continuation of our copending application SerialNo. 76,934, filed Dec. 19, 1960, now abandoned.

This invention relates to a high speed luminous recorder controllable,in particular, by data processing ma-v chines and informationtransmission and transcription systerns.

The prior art of high speed recorders requires storage for at least oneline of characters. This involves a large amount of equipment the costof which is usually very large. According to a feature of the presentinvention it is possible to accept a line of characters from a computeror from a magnetic tape without the use of storage. According to thepresent invention a serially presented intelligence information can beproduced in visual form on a screen or printed on a light sensitivemedium at an extremely high speed to follow computer outputs, the limitbeing the simultaneous projections of all the elements of entire lines.

An object of this invention is to provide a high speed line recordercapable to record all the characters of a line either one at a time asthe information is received by said recorder or simultaneously if theinformation of entire lines is stored in advance of the recordingoperation.

Another object of this invention is to provide a novel high speedprojection system to produce and record entire lines of information at ahigh speed of several hundred lines per second.

It is another object of this invention to provide a high speed indicatorfor visual observation of data.

It is another object of this invention to provide a static high speedline printer which is capable of printing on a light sensitive mediumall the characters of a line simultaneously.

It is still another object of this invention to provide a novel highspeed photographic printer wherein the image receiving medium iscontinuously moving in one direction at a uniform speed.

Other objects and features of the present invention will become apparentfrom the following description taken together with the accompanyingdrawings in which:

FIGURE 1 is a diagrammatic representation of the optical system of thehigh speed recorder.

FIGURE 2 represents schematically a high speed recorder of largercapacity.

FIGURE 3 represents in perspective the same arrangement as shown inFIGURE 2.

FIGURE 4 is a simplified block diagram showing the arrangements of themain components of a high speed recorder.

FIGURE 5 represents schematically a block diagram of another embodimentof the high speed recorder.

FIGURE 6 represents one of the flash units used in the embodiment shownon FIGURE 5.

FIGURE 7 represents schematically the optical arrangement of a recorderaccording to the present invention embodying mechanical shutters for theselection of characters.

FIGURE 8 represents the appearance of text matter on a continuouslymoving film with no compensation for continuous motion of said film.

ice

FIGURE 9 shows the appearance of lines on a. con tinuously moving filmwith compensating means as per a feature of this invention.

FIGURE 10 shows the appearance of characters produced at the output ofthe optical system of the high speed recorder when a continuously movingrecording medium is used.

FIGURE 11 represents schematically the recording medium holder of theembodiment of the present invention with a continuously moving recordingmedium.

FIGURES 12, 13 and 14 show an arrangement of binary shutters.

FIGURE 15 represents a shutter card for the simultaneous production ofentire lines of characters.

The main components of the novel high speed recorder are shown inFIGURE 1. A matrix plate 2 which can be a photographic glass plate, isprovided with characters or symbols'transparent on opaque background. Inthe example shown there are as many horizontal rows of equally spacedcharacters as there are different characters in the alphabet. Eachhorizontal row consists of the same character and the spacing of thecharacters in a horizontal row determines the spacing of the charactersin the lines appearing at the output of the recorder. Characters at thesame location in the horizontal rows determine columns containing allthe different characters available in said location in the differentlines produced by the recorder.

There are, consequently, on the matrix, as many vertical columns of agiven alphabet as there may be characters in the lines to producecomposed of any of the characters of the alphabet. Selectiveillumination means are located at the rear of the matrix plate toproject images of characters as will be explained later.

- A projection lens 4 is positioned at approximately the center of thematrix plate 2 with its optical axis passing through the center of acharacter and through the center of a flat block of glass 6.

Projection lens 4 is positioned in relation with the matrix 2 and therear face 12 of the glass block so that a sharp image of an object point5 is made at 5 on face 12 of the glassblock.

The width w of the glass block depends on the focal length of lens 4 andon the matrix size. The length l of the glass block determines themaximum length of line which can be recorded and the thickness t of theblock is proportional to the distance between consecutive horizontalrows of the master characters of plate 2.

The projection lens 4 is designed to take into account the presence ofthe glass block in the path of light emerging from said lens and itsaperture is determined by the thickness of said block.

The two edges 12 and 12 of the block of glass parallel with the matrixplate are ground flat and polished. The end edges such as 58 playing nopart in the invention, do not have to be polished. The two large facesof the block should be polished flat and parallel.

As seen in the figure, square or rectangular elemental areas areaffected to each character. The central elemental area is intersected bythe optical axis of lens 4 at a point 5 which is approximately locatedat the center of a character. In the case of the figure, the characterintersected by said optical axis is N. As seen in said FIGURE 1, thehorizontal plane defined by the optical axis 55 of lens 4 and line 7-9passing through point 5 and parallel with the large faces of block 6intersects the figure) is projected to the left of 5' etc., each letterN on face 12 being spaced in proportion to the spacing of the master Nson line 7-9. For the projectionvof the line of characters, the presenceof the glass block 6 has no other effect but to lengthen the lens-imagedistance as compared to what it would be. if no glass were used. For theprojection of any other character of the matrix, the large faces of theglass block behave like reflecting surfaces, and by properly spacing thehorizontal rows on matrix 2, it is possible to project on a common baseline of face 12 any of the characters of the matrix. In one embodimentof the invention, the size of the master characters is the same as thesize of the images produced, and the spacing of the horizontal rows ofthe matrix is equal to the thickness t of the glass block. By shiftingthe illumination from the back of the row of characters on line 7-9 onestep down so that a line of s is illuminated, the image of said lineappears at the back face 12 of glass block 6 on the same base line asthe line of NS as the bundle of rays defining said image are reflectedonce by the upper large face of the glass block. By moving theillumination another step down, behind the row of Ps, an image line ofthese characters will also appear on the same base line, the raysdefining said image having undergone two successive reflections, one bythe upper face of the glass block and another by its lower face. A thirdrow of characters counting from line 79 will beprojected after 3reflections and so on. As shown in FIGURE 1, the master characters ofsuccessive horizontal rows are alternately erect and reversed tocompensate for the reversing of images produced by the reflectionsinside the glass block. Thus, any selectively illuminated character ofmatrix 2 is projected on the same common base line on face 12. Thelocation of any projected character in the line produced by the systemis determined by its distance from the vertical column of the matrixfrom which the first character of said line is projected. In the exampleshown, this first vertical column is at 1:143 and as there are 20vertical columns in the matrix, the total capacity of the system is 20characters per line.

In the example shown in FIGURE 1 it has been assumed that each mastercharacter can be selectively illuminated by an individual light source.The characters shown separately in the matrix are those which areilluminated in order to project on face 12 of the glass block the lineHIGH SPEED RECORDER. Letter H is illuminated in the first column 11-113and its image is produced at 3 on face 12 of the glass block after 6reflections and an angular travel which brings it to the oppositeside ofoptical axis -5. In the second column, letter I is illuminated and itsimage reaches a location on face 12 next to the image of H after 5successive reflections as shown by line 10. In the third column, letterG is illuminated and, after 7- reflections, its image appears next tothe image of I and so on. Finally, the letter before last E is projectedafter 9 reflections as shown by line 8 and the last letter R of the lineis projected after 4 reflections. Black spaces between words are ofcourse obtained by not illuminating letters of the columns correspondingto their locations. It is clear that all the characters used in a linecan be projected either simultaneously or successively.

The images appearing on back face 12 can be of very high optical qualitywhen a properly designed lens is used. It can be pointed out that thesuccessive reflections inside the glass do not increase the length ofthe individual light paths over what these lengths would be if a blockof glass of -a cross section equal to the size of the matrix were used.In this case, the lens 4 would make an image of the matrix 2 and theluminous path of the rays forming each character would be of the samelength as it is in the present embodiment of the invention afterincurring a number of reflections. It can also be pointed out thatsubstantially no loss of light is incurred through the successivereflections inside the glass as the rays forming each from the lens.

image make, with the two large faces of the glass block, an angle whichis smaller than the critical total reflection angle. Thus, eachcharacter is projected to the rear face of the glass block as a sharpimage with no loss of luminosity.

The system represented on FIGURE 1 can be used as a viewer for examplefor computer outputs in which case the rear face 12 of the block iscoated with a diffusing substance or covered with a diffusing material.This system is particularly adaptable to the presentation of numbers ina computing machine and can replace more expensive and bulky equipment.The most evident application of the invention, however, is for thepermanent recording of lines of characters and in this case, a lightsensitive medium is positioned adjacent to the rear face 12 of theblock. The light sensitive medium can be either a photographic film orpaper or electrostatically charged paper as is well known to the man ofthe art.

The total number of characters which can be projected by the systemdepends on the useful angle of the lens, the size of the mastercharacters, and the focal length of the lens. In practice, it has beenfound desirable to increase the total capacity of the high speedrecorder by other means than an increaseof the number of charactersincluded in the angular coverage of the lens.

A preferred embodiment is shown in FIGURES 2 and 3. In this embodimenttwo matrix plates 2 and 30 are simultaneously used, containing each twosets of 60 different characters which gives to the machine a totalcapacity of different characters per alphabet. The illumination ofselected characters is obtained by the use of cathode ray tubes 16 and36, the purpose of which is to project a luminous spot of substantiallythe same size as a master character at the rear of the matrix andopposite the characters to be projected. The advantages of the use ofcathode ray tube for this purpose are evident as they enable the rapidselection of points to illuminate and permit the rapid projection oflines one character at a time. If necessary, more than one cathode raytube can be used for each matrix plate. The cathode ray tube screenshould be of the appropriate material and be as close as practicallypossible to the matrix. As shown in FIGURE 2 each matrixis divided inthree sections 17, 19, and 21 containing each 20 horizontal rows ofcharacters. These three sections are all projected to the same 'IlIlCthrough lens 4 and glass block 6. The characters of sections 17 and 21are merged with characters from section 19 through an optical mergingdevice comprising prisms 20 and 22, correction lenses 23 and 25 andsemireflecting mirrors 26 and 28. Screens 14 and 24 are provided toprevent any light from one section to reach the other section. Thedimensions of glass blocks or prisms 20-22 are determined to compensatefor the difference of the geometrical length of the light rays comingfrom sections 17 or 21 as compared to the central section 19. As is wellknown to the man of the art, the introduction of a block of glass withparallel polished faces in an optical system has the effect of movingthe image further away It is thus possible to compensate for the extradistance the character images from group 17 and 21 have to travel by theintroduction of the proper amount of glass in their path. As theintroduction of parallel blocks of glass in an optical system, on theother hand, introduces aberrations or distortions, correcting lenses 23and 24 are preferably added as shown in the drawing.

In the example shown, on FIGURES 2 and 3, it is assumed that therecorder is used for permanent recording on a piece of light sensitivefilm or paper. Photographic film or paper or a light sensitivestatically charged paper can be used in the present recorder. The paper54 is preferably continuously fed from a feed spool 52 around rollers55, between presser plates 56, between another pair of rollers 57 to thereceiving spool 50. Rollers 55 act as brakes and rollers 57 are thedriving rollers and are connected to a continuously rotating mechanismthrough a clutch. It may be desirable in certain cases to drive thelight sensitive medium intermittently after each line in which caserollers 57 would be connected to any appropriate intermittent paperfeed. In order to double the number of different characters which can beprojected, it is contemplated, as shown in FIGURE 2, to use a secondoptical system similar to the one just described on the other side offilm or paper 54. This system is more particularly applicable in thecase where any transparent light sensitive material is used. A secondlens 32 associated with glass block 34 and merging system 38, 40, 48 and46 project the characters produced from matrix 30 on the same line asthose produced by matrix 2.

In.order to increase the length of line determined by the total numberof characters which it can comprise, several lenses can be associatedwith the same block of glass as shown in FIGURE 3. In this figure, thesame components as those shown in FIGURE 2 are represented with the samereference numbers. In addition, FIGURE 3 represents six lenses, three oneach side of the film, shown at 4, 6t), 62, 32, 64'and 66. In thisparticular case, each lens is affected to one third of the matrix area,said matrix being thus further divided in three sections 59, 61 and 63as shown. Each section can contain, for example, 25 vertical columns ofcharacters giving a total line capacity of 75 characters. 'The-re is, ofcourse, no limitation, in the number of lenses which can be used inorder to increase the number of characters which can be simultaneouslyprojected to the viewing screen or sensitized material.

FIGURE 4 is a block diagram of the circuit components used to controlthe illuminating means of the high speed recorder shown on FIGURES 2 and3. Block 86 represents the computer output or magnetic tape or otherstorage which contains, generally in coded form, all the informationrequired to transcribe lines of numerals or letters onto a recordingmedium. This information is sent to a buffer unit 88 and from this unitreaches selecting circuits 76 and 78. Circuit 76 comprises a decoderwhich detects the alphabetical identity of the character to be projectedaccording to the information obtained from the computer. The characteridentity in coded form is sent to a converter 72 and the verticaldeflection circuit 74 of the cathode ray tube 70. Thus, depending on theidentity of the character to be projected, the luminous spot 71 of thecathode ray tube moves in the direction perpendicular to line 79(FIGURE 1) to stop opposite the horizontal row of the character to beprojected.

The displacement of the luminous spot along a direction parallel to line7-9 of FIGURE 1 is obtained by the column selection circuit 78, theconverter 80, and the horizontal deflection circuit 82. The circuit'78comprises a counter which continuously deflects the spot along thecolumn selection direction, one step for each character received fromthe computer. In this way it is not necessary to store a whole line ofcharacters before projection although this may be accomplished if sodesired. Block 84 is the high voltage supply source, 90 represents thetiming circuit which controls the unbla'nking circuit 92 so that aluminous spot is made to appear at the face of the cathode ray tube fora certain duration for example, 100 microseconds after it has reachedthe proper character as determined by circuit 76, in the proper columnas determined by circuit 78.

FIGURE 5 shows an alternative where flash lamps are used rather than acathode ray tube. Each flash lamp 114 is associated with its trigger anddischarge circuits 116 and is shown in FIGURE 6, in a common tube. Thereis one flash lamp for each character of the matrix and all these lampsare mounted in a common plate 118. It is evident that a large number oflamps are necessary when many different characters are to be projectedand long lines are desired. But' these flash lamps are not subjected toconsiderable use as, in the average, each lamp is not flashed more thanonce for a number of lines equal to the shown in this figure.

number of characters contained in the alphabet. The system shown inFIGURE 15, using flash lamps, is considerably faster than any knownsystem as it may produce lines at the rate of 500 lines per second. Theinput of the system can be a magnetic tape or computer shown at 100,giving in coded form the necessary information to the high speedrecorder. This information reaches a buffer 102 which can comprise adecoder in order to separate the column identity sent to the columndecoder 106 from the alphabetical identity sent to the alphabeticaldecoder 104. If desired, the buffer 102, can be replaced by a storagewhere a full line can be stored in advance of the recording. The flashlamps such as 114 are arranged in columns and row formation in a matrix112. A timer 108 controls the succession of operations by stepping thebuffer one step each time a flash has occurred and triggering the flashcircuit 110 as soon as the buffer has moved to the next character of theline to record. The optical unit is schematically shown at and the lightsensitive material at 122. This light sensitive material is driven by amechanism shown at 124 preferably continuously moving the imagereceiving material during the recording of lines but arranged to stopand start under the control of buffer 102 as shown.

As a flash light of a few microseconds is suflicient to produce an imageon the light sensitive material and as all the characters of a line canbe simultaneously projected, it is clear that there is practically nospeed limitation in this system except the limitation introduced by thelight sensitive material displacement mechanism.

In the embodiment of the invention where the light sensitive material iscontinuously fed during the projection of a line one character at atime, the characters of the matrix plate instead of being aligned on thesame base line, are preferably positioned as shown in FIGURE 10. Asshown in this figure, the characters are individually tilted by acertain angle and this angle is determined by the speed of thecontinuously moving image receivingmedium and the speed at whichindividual characters are projected onto said medium. The tilt is ofcourse zero when all the characters of a line are simultaneouslyprojected. If the characters were positioned as shown on matrix 2 ofFIGURE 1 and the recording medium were continuously moved, for example,in the direction of the arrow of FIGURE 8, the lines would have theappearance This is, of course, evident if it is considered that, afterthe first character of a line, H for example, each has been projected,the sensitive material moves a certain distance so that the nextcharacter I is displaced in the direction of the motion of the lightsensitive material relatively to the first character H and in the samemanner the next character G will be displaced in relation to I and soon.

In FIG. 8 the distance between the base line of the first character ofthe line and the last character of the same line represents the totaldisplacement of the recording material during the time elapsed betweenthe projection of the first and the last character. The base of thecharacters of a given line makes thus an angle at with a lineperpendicular to the edges of the image receiving material or film. Inorder to align the characters on a common base line and obtain theresult shown in FIGURE 9, the film, as shown at 128 in FIGURE 11, ismounted on a tilting frame 136. This frame can rock around a pivot 126located, for example, at the center of the first character of any line.The angle given to frame 136 can be 4 adjusted and this frame can belocked in position after ably between said matrix and the projectionlens.

7 As shown in FIGURE 8, when the first letter of the first line H isprojected it appears as shown with the vertical strokes of the letterparallel with the edges of the 'film. During the time which elapsesbetween the projection of the first character and the next one which isI (as in the previous example) the film moves a certain distanceshutters of the kind described in our British Patent No.

733,789 can be used in order to illuminate no more than one character ineach vertical column of the matrix.

This arrangement is ofparticular interest where lower speeds of therecorder are acceptable with a higher light output to print lines onstatically charged paper according to known processes.

In the embodiment shown in FIGURES l2, l3 and 14 it has been assumedthat there are no more than 31 characters in a vertical row. A stack offour binary shutter plates is positioned opposite each vertical row ofthe matrix and these shutter plates are notched as shown in FIGURE 12and explained in the above mentioned patent. Each plate can slide adistance h upon energization of solenoids 168. Each plateis returned torest position by springs 172 and levers 170 as shown in FIGURE 13. Eachgroup of four decoding blades is assembled on a common frame 166 whichcan slide up and down along rollers 182 under the control of a solenoid174 through lever 178, against spring 176. By proper energization ofindividual blade solenoids such as 168 a hole of the size of a charactercan be opened along a vertical column of characters to select onecharacter of the group and this hole can further be moved up one step bythe energization of solenoid 174 so that with four blades it is possibleto selectively illuminate as'many as 31 characters. This system enablesthe use of matrix plates with adjacent characters so that there is noloss of space. As, however, the characters normally positioned oppositethe solid section 164 of shutter blades assembly 165 would becontinuously masked by said shutters, the system shown in FIGURE 7 canbe used in which two lenses, 142 and 144, are located in the opticalsystem in such a way that both lenses project two groups of verticalcolumns of characters on the same common line 140. In this case, thematrix shown at 148 is divided in two halves by a screen 146. I Onevertical column out of two in each half is used, the other column devoidof characters is opposite the solid part 164 of the shutters. Theshutter mechanism is schematically shown at 150 in FIGURE 7, and theilluminating means in the form of lamps at 152. Although thisarrangement requiresa larger number of lenses it makes it possible touse mechanical shutters without having to leave blank spaces on thematrix to accommodate said shutters.

Another form of mechanical shutter is shown in FIG URE 15. This figurerepresents a punched card 186 of opaque material placed adjacent to thematrix and'prefer- The whole area of the matrix is illuminated in itsentirety and the selection of the characters to be projected to form aline is made by selectively punching holes 184 in the card. Each line tobe projected corresponds to one card of substantially the size of thematrix. The holes through which characters are projected aresubstantially of the same size as each elemental area containing acharacter and are located along coordinates 183 and 185. The spacing oflines 185 is equal to the spacing of the master characters in a verticalcolumn of the matrix and the spacing of lines 183 is equal tothe-spacing of the identical characters in a horizontal row. In theexample shown, card 186, when used as a mask against the illuminatedmatrix plate 2 of FIGURE 1 will produce the entire alphabet on the face12 of glass block 6. Means are presently available to move cards pastthe matrix plate at suflicient speed to produce several lines persecond. In an embodiment of the invention, the cards are continuouslymoved past the matrix and adjacent to it and the leading edge of eachcard triggers a flash circuit at the instant the card is exactly alignedin the system. The flash illuminates the whole matrix but the onlycharacters projected are those facing holes of the card at the time theflash occurs.

Although the embodiment of the invention described includes a flat blockof glass as reflecting means, it is clear that it can be replaced by anyother equivalent arrangement, particularly by two parallel front surfacemirrors.

One advantage of the invention is the possibility of storing the signalsmaking up a line in a memory as they arrive and, when a whole line thushas been stored, to trigger simultaneously all the illuminating meansassociated with each column in order to project said line in oneoperation. It follows that the permissible exposure is equal to the timeit takes for a complete line to be stored in the said mmeory. In thecase of high speed telegraph circuit transmitting characters at thespeed of characters as second, and a line comprising 25 characters, thepermissible exposure time is 250 milliseconds. This is a long enoughexposure to make it possible to use receiving surfaces of lowsensitivity associated with such processes as xcrography, and filmsdevolped by heat.

The memory may comprise any possible elements which have two stablepositions such as electromagnetic devices, magnetic cores, etc.,according to the desired speed.

In one embodiment the memory may have the same matrix arrangement as thecharacter matrix itself. Such matrices using for instance bi-stablemagnetic cores are well known in the art and the arrangement will not bedescribed in detail. One particular core is allocated to one particularcharacter of the matrix and when a signal arrives it magnetizes the corecorresponding to the character it represents. When one core has thusbeen magnetized per column, a single reading wire passing through thecenter of all the cores is energized and produces a signal in the outputleads of each of the cores which have been magnetized in the recordingoperation. Each of these reading out wires is connected to oneparticular illuminating means associated with the correspondingcharacter matrix and causes it to be illuminated. The

7 memory is thus read in a single operation and made free to receiveanother line. The exposure may, of course, last until another completeline has been stored. This straightforward arrangement has, however, thedrawback of necessitating one core per character matrix. It may besimplified, especially when the signals coming in are in the form ofcoded signals, if the characters are stored in their coded form. In thiscase, for instance for telegraphic purposes a S-element binary code issufficient for the alphabet and no more than S magnetic memory elementsper column are used. As the transmission progresses the signals areapplied in succession to one such group of memory elements five percharacter. When a complete line has been stored, the memory elements areall read at the same time, for instance by an appropriate timing pulse.The ouput signals obtained by each of these groups of 5 memory elementsthen control the illumination means associated with the character theyrepresent. This operation, or decoding, may be effected by a number ofvarious means which will not be described here, since they are willknown in the art. In the case where mechanical or other binary shuttersare used, each core may be associated with each shutter blade so that nocode translation is necessary.

While preferred embodiments of the invention have been described, theymay be modified in conformity with the present or future knowledge inthe art to suit particular applications, as will be readily appreciated.

What is claimed is:

1. In a high. speed recorder for presenting characters in line formationon an image receiving medium, the combination of a matrix plate withlight transmitting characters or signs arranged in row and columnformation, each row containing the same character regularly spacedand'repeated as many times as there may be characters in the line andeach column containing different characters, a lens positioned to makean image of said plate on the image receiving medium, a pair of parallelreflecting surfaces between said lens and said image receiving mediumpositioned so that the optical axis of the lens is substantially atequal distances from said reflecting surfaces, said reflecting surfacesbeing substantially perpendicular to the columns of the said matrix andspaced in relation to the distance between consecutive characters ineach column, a single source of light comprised of a cathode rayoscilloscope with a control circuit producing a light spot ofappropriate dimension to illuminate a selected light transmittingcharacter in each of the various columns in succession, whereby throughthe action of the lens and of multiple reflections between thereflecting surfaces, the illuminated characters are projected on theimage receiving medium on a fixed line at positions determined by thecolumns containing the selected light transmitting characters, and meansto move the image receiving medium continuously in a directiontransverse to said line.

2. The combination according to claim 1, wherein the selected charactersin adjacent columns are successively projected and the image receivingmedium is skewed so that all of the character images in a line arearranged transversely to the margin thereof.

3. The combination according to claim 1, wherein the image receivingmedium is slanted with respect to the reflecting surfaces and moves at acontinuous uniform speed such that the differences in time between twoconsecutive projections of character images is equal to the time takenby the sensitive surface to move a distance suflicient to align saidconsecutive character images, the characters in the matrix plate beingalso slanted in order to produce lines perpendicular to the edges of theimage receiving medium.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,379,880 7/1945Burgess 178-45 2,392,224 1/1946 Bryce 954.5 X 2,553,285 5/1951 Thomas8824 2,596,741 5/1952 Tyler 34633 2,725,786 12/1955 McCarthy 95-4.5 X2,736,770 2/1956 McNaney 178-15 2,887,935 5/1959 Scott 95-4.5 3,041,9307/1962 Davidson 88-24 JOHN M. HORAN, Primary Examiner.

1. IN A HIGH SPEED RECORDER FOR PRESENTING CHARACTERS IN LINE FORMATIONON AN IMAGE RECEIVING MEDIUM, THE COMBINATION OF A MATRIX PLATE WITHLIGHT TRANSMITTING CHARACTERS OR SIGNS ARRANGED IN ROW AND COLUMNFORMATION, EACH ROW CONTAINING THE SAME CHARACTER REGULARLY SPACED ANDREPEATED AS MANY TIMES AS THERE MAY BE CHARACTERS IN THE LINE AND EACHCOLUMN CONTAINING DIFFERENT CHARACTERS, A LENS POSITIONED TO MAKE ANIMAGE OF SAID PLATE ON THE IMAGE RECEIVING MEDIUM, A PAIR OF PARALLELREFLECTING SURFACES BETWEEN SAID LENS AND SAID IMAGE RECEIVING MEDIUMPOSITIONED SO THAT THE OPTICAL AXIS OF THE LENS IS SUBSTANTIALLY ATEQUAL DISTANCES FROM SAID REFLECTING SURFACES, SASID REFLECTING SURFACESBEING SUBSTANTIALLY PERPENDICULAR TO THE COLUMNS OF THE SAID MATRIX ANDSPACED IN RELATION TO THE DISTANCE BETWEEN CONSECUTIVE CHARACTERS INEACH COLUMN, A SINGLE SOURCE OF LIGHT COMPRISED OF A CATHODE RAYOSCILLOSCOPE WITH A CONTROL CIRCUIT PRODUCING A LIGHT SPOT OTAPPROPRIATE DIMENSION TO ILLUMINATE A SELECTED LIGHT TRANSMITTINGCHARACTER IN EACH OF THE VARIOUS COLUMNS IN SUCCESSION, WHEREBY THROUGHTHE ACTION OF THE LENS AND OF MULTIPLE REFLECTIONS BETWEEN THEREFLECTING SURFACES, THE ILLUMINATED CHARACTERS ARE PROJECTED ON THEIMAGE RECEIVING MEDIUM ON A FIXED LINE AT POSITIONS DETERMINED BY THECOLUMNS CONTAINING THE SELECTED LIGHT TRANSMITTING CHARACTERS, AND MEANSTO MOVE THE IMAGE RECEIVING MEDIUM CONTINUOUSLY IN A DIRECTIONTRANSVERSE TO SAID LINE.